... provided you have java installed.

... which is likely if you use an Apple laptop and trivial if you don't

When I first started out with Clojure on Ubuntu I honestly had no idea which packages to start out with. It's not a huge deal and I was able to get it right through trial and error but it's one more step where a potential user could get lost.

I wouldn't mind contributing to some official getting started documentation if that was possible. Seeing an HN comment as the go-to source for getting started upthread disappointed me.

Sorry to disappoint.

What you're asking wasn't the intended scope of my comment, but it is covered by the 4th item: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Clojure_Programming, specifically: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Clojure_Programming/Getting_Sta...

To a great extent the previous items are intended to convince you to give Clojure a try/orient you before you start typing in a REPL.

Learning a functional language is not necessarily hard but many people say it's harder than programmers who are experienced in imperative programming expect. The latter are used to picking up new imperative languages and the change to the functional paradigm is not as easy. On the other hand, the more scars they have from side effect induced bugs the more they appreciate it.